Cloaking Forum

Cloaking is a Search Engine Optimization technique in which the content presented to the search engine spider is different from that presented to the users' browser; this is done by delivering content based on the IP addresses or the User-Agent HTTP header of whatever is requesting the page. The only legitimate uses for Cloaking used to be for delivering content to users that search engines couldn't parse, like Macromedia Flash.

Spamdexing or Search Engine Spamming is the practice of deliberately creating web pages which will be indexed by search engines in order to increase the chance of a website or page being placed close to the beginning of search engine results, or to influence the category to which the page is assigned. Many designers of web pages try to get a good ranking in search engines and design their pages accordingly. The word is a portmanteau of spamming and indexing.

The only legitimate uses for Cloaking used to be for delivering content to users that search engines couldn't parse, like Macromedia Flash.

Really?

Whats Cloaking and Spamdexing?

Are you telling or asking?

BTW, I don't cloak, never have and never will; but I have an insatiable intellectual curiosity that's whetted by WFAs who fly in out of the blue with incontrovertible theoretizations based on absolutes and who use words like portmanteau.

I think your definitions of cloaking and "spamdexing" are way too narrow.

Web page cloaking is the act of presenting different content to different visitors of a web page based on some criteria. It is used for a lot of purposes, one of which is delivering content optimized for favorable treatment in the algorithms to search engine spiders. When it is used like this, it is called "SEO Cloaking".

"Spamdexing" (actually most people just refer to it as web spamming) involves a number of techniques, only one of which is the creation of "doorway pages" optimized for favorable treatment in the search engines. It also includes linkbaiting, requesting or buying incoming links, setting up blogging and pinging, and a number of other techniques.

SEO Cloaking and doorway pages are related, in that a favorite SEO Cloaking technique is to create doorway pages and cloak them. This is not always the case, though. Some cloakers cloak their legitimate content to keep non-subscribers from accessing it, while allowing spiders free access.

Many designers of web pages try to get a good ranking in search engines and design their pages accordingly.

Lest there be misinterpretation, that can't include all web designers who try to make web pages that'll rank well. How can designing search engine friendly pages and including relevant text that includes keywords be considered spam? There are even some optimization tips at some of the search engines.